Warner Bros. Pictures
Get Hardis the latest comedy from Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, and while Hart has seen his star ascend rather rapidly over the past year, Ferrell has hit kind of a plateau, teetering on the edge of a career flameout thanks to an over-reliance on his patented, dim, over-grown man-child character that served him so well on SNL and when he first broke into movies with films like Old School, Anchorman and Elf. That character has grown tiresome (Anchorman 2 severely under-performed at the box office), and audiences haven’t taken to a more mature Ferrell in films like Stranger Than Fiction and Everything Must Go, so what’s the next step?
Team up with America’s hottest “new” funnyman, Kevin Hart, that’s what! Ferrell stars as James, a hedge fund manager engaged to the boss’ daughter, who hits a major home run with a financial deal that earns him a partnership with the company. But on the night of his engagement party, the feds burst in and arrest him for insider trading, an accusation he steadfastly denies. The judge, however, sentences James to the harshest term possible in the worst prison imaginable, and James see car wash attendant Darnell (Hart) as his only option for survival in the Big House. Because Darnell is black, of course, so he statistically must have spent time in prison. Hilarity ensues as Darnell pretends to be a hardened convict, and the movie goes for laughs will managing to offend many.
The elephant in the room at the moment of this writing is the charges against the film of being extraordinarily homophobic (no one seems to have a problem with the racist humor though). I say p’shaw to that. Yes, there is one scene in the film where James fears that he’s not strong enough to defend himself in prison (therefore rape is a probability), so Darnell take him to a well-known gay establishment so that James can “practice” servicing another man. I found the moment to be hilarious because of Ferrell’s performance, and I’m pretty sure a straight guy would have the same reaction to doing something so foreign to him. The moment does not bash gay men (Darnell even becomes friends with a guy who tried to pick him up!), but rather pokes fun at the gay-hysteria a straight man might have in such a situation. For me, this is a non-issue. We have too much political correctness these days, and that can be a dangerous thing when applied to comedy.
Ferrell’s James is a fish-out-of-water with more intelligence than most of his previous characters. tweet
Outside of that, I still found much of the movie to be very funny, and Ferrell’s character, while still a bit dim about things, is more of a fish-out-of-water with more intelligence than most of his characters. James is definitely smart when it comes to figures and statistics, but he’s just so white that he has no clue about other cultures, particularly the African American culture (as witnessed by his outfit above, which he put together after watching a music video). Hart gets to show a few different facets to his comic persona, going from loud and over-the-top to a quiet family man. It’s nice to see him not be so screechy for an entire movie. Darnell puts James through his paces, transforming his mansion into a replica of prison complete with a cell, a “yard” and a riot — which is probably the funniest and most absurd scene in the movie (where did that baboon come from?!).
Director Etan Cohen keeps the plot moving swiftly along, although covering thirty days in a 100-minute film leaves the viewer feeling that there was probably a lot left on the cutting room floor (particularly just exactly how Darnell and the gay man from the restaurant actually swapped numbers and become pals). But even if it does seem like a series of quick vignettes leading up to the conclusion, revealing who exactly framed James and why, the story still flows smoothly, the laughs come fast and furious, and Ferrell and Hart become a comedy team you just might like to see in another movie.
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